Science & Industry

I make a few millions of ISK a day from about thirty seconds of effort. The rest of the time I'm not even logged in. Station trading is so overpowered, yes?

So you're really only making 10M ISK/hr, and spending 50 minutes of that hour being an unresponsive target for gankers. It's worth pointing out that you're not going to spend 50 minutes doing nothing, then 10 minutes doing stuff. If you're mining asteroids, you'll be targeting rocks & restarting lasers about once every 2-6 minutes.

One interesting point is that you cannot increase your income by spending more time being active at the keyboard. No matter how much effort you put into it, your mining income is limited by how fast your mining lasers can vacuum up those rocks. Thus your mining income is limited to about 10M ISK per wallclock hour. Sure, you can juggle the numbers by defining "active time" versus "inactive time" and make it look like you're earing far more isk for the time that you are massaging the mouse and keyboard, but mining ends up being just like pouring concrete or painting: you are active for a short time, then you have to sit back and wait for "stuff" to happen.

In project management terms, the critical path is impacted by the non-fungible task of waiting for the lasers to cycle. No matter how many people you put on the job, it still takes nine months to build a baby.

Ok...

You make 60m per active hour of mining.
On a 24hr (real) day you're making 240 million isk MAX.
That's 1.68b isk in 7 day's. WOAH!

Now, I on the other land live in a world of 24 hours.... YES! 24 of em'!
On the 28th of this month I decided to take 2 hours out of my day, since I have so many to spare, to station trade a bit.

I spent 6 minutes setting up orders, then I logged off.
An hour later I spent 7 minutes setting up orders, then I logged off.

I woke up on the next 24hr day to find that I had went from 772m isk, to 801m isk...
That's a difference of 29m isk... and I only spent 13 minutes doing it.
Now, 60 minutes divided by 13 is roughly 4.6... So 4.6 multiplied by 29m isk is 133.4m per day.
That's an easy 3.2b per day, or 22.4b per week!

I must say I fell short of that last week, and I'm sure going by your logic, you still didn't get your 1.7b last week either.

Correct.

Wait, wut?

It's called experience of how the world really works and what really goes into those numbers.

Let's use your trader above as an example.

I see you've ignored the time he's had to spend reading the papers and studying the markets so he doesn't set up completely crap trades. Then there's the contacts he has to make and maintain to keep the capital base in place. The time it takes him to get to and from work. The clothing equipment and sundries that he is expected to provide. And the years he spent at college and working to get to be a trader in the first place, learning how it all works, how to be successful at it and the work that needs to be put in to maintain that "edge".

It all adds up .

Likewise in Eve.

I make most of my money with PI. Spend only a few minutes a day settng up production runs and it's easy money that takes almost no time at all right?

Oh - and I also spend maybe 10-12 hours a week dodging P-rats as I haul the PI products back to empire to sell. In fact as far as PI is concerned this is the major timesink. Not setting up PI, but getting the materials to where it can be used.

One big time-monster in mining is hauling the ore back to a suitable station - which is why the Mackinaw with it's huge ore hold is the new "best beloved" of miners everywhere. Bigger hold, fewer runs to base, less time spent hauling. Because every single stage of the mining process is "work", whether it's hauling the ore, getting it or it's product to market and selling it.

BTW there are many people who skip this whole "work" process by just hauling the ore to the nearest station and hitting "sell" to save time - I love people who do that!

The argument in the OP is really just a variation on "minerals I mine myself are free", grotesquely undervaluing your own time and work. You have to look at the whole process, ALL the time you spend to do something, including the preperation and post-work.

You don't have to do that of course. I'll happily buy your ore at the minimum price wherever you happen to be mining it and you can just take your few pennies for the that 10 seconds work you put in.................

It takes me 3 minutes to load and set my washing machine then 2 minutes to unload it when it is done. I can do 12 loads of laundry per hour!

Your point is valid in that you pass onto the game the work involved in mining the stuff; your contribution is the mouse clicking as you say. If people counted up the amount of time you interact with the game it would work out as 60Misk/hr of game interaction. The new mining ships with effin big holds ought to boost this further by increasing the time between necessary interaction.

Unfortunately, any topic on the eve forums brings out the social-inepts and plain deranged, vying with each other to write the most 'street' comment. They all succeed in making themselves look like the losers in life they probably are.

CONGRATS! You've discovered the definition of "active" time! This is the whole point that I've been trying to make.

I am actually loosing faith in all of Mankind!!!

How is this so hard for you to under stand.

You can not skip those 50 minutes in between! Not unless you have a Time Machine, which going by your train of thought, we can dismiss.

EXAMPLE:
If i made $50.00 an Hour. And I worked 8 hours per day for 5 days, that would be 40 hours per week. And assuming a 4 Week Month, i would work 160 Hours, correct?

Now if I multiply this together. ($50.00) * (8 Hours) * (5 Days) * (4 Weeks) = $8,000. It would be $8,000 for my 160 hours of work. So I would make $8,000 PER MONTH.

Your logic is: I am only working 160 hours out of the month. But even though I am not workign for the rest of the month. That part should be taken out.
(24 hours) * (7 Days) * (4 Weeks) = 672 Hours.

(672) / (160) = 4.2

By your brand of "logic" I can cut out the whole section, where i am not actively working, right?

So that means (4.2) * ($8,000) = $336,000 per month.

Holy Cow, i had no idea i could afford all these things with my new found reservoir of money!!! You managed to QUADRUPLE my income. Thank you soooo much for helping me acquire a 6 Figure income!

On a more Serious note, i just applied your really ****** logic to a real like situation. HUH?!?! Whats that you say, that does not make sense and thats not how rates work? No ******* ****.

Sorry for swearing, I can only try so many times, before i start to lose it.

It makes no difference how much your "active" income is, because there is time in which you are no "active" and you can not just omit that part of the math equation.

On a side note, I hope someone does your Taxes for you. I would hate to see the IRS tell you off worse than i am.

If you still don't get it... I have no idea what you should do with yourself. Reason is human nature.

I'm guessing the mining fleet you're running makes more ISK per hour than the given examples.

edit: @ OP: btw; not impressive. You still need to log in for 6 hours to make 60 Million ISK, which is far more time required to make much more than that elsewhere. Even if you are in a Retriever, that's a paltry sum. 10 Million ISK is next to nothing in this game and something most players can make in their first hours of playing. So really, you haven't graduated much beyond the tutorials in terms of ISK making.

I may be a little odd, but I feel that time logged in or time required, no matter how much of it is active, is what really counts when it comes to earning potential. If you were in a race, you'd be losing.